


Popsicle Night

by Hello_Spikey



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-12
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-11 03:48:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17439374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hello_Spikey/pseuds/Hello_Spikey
Summary: Angel finds Spike pole-dancing in LA. He's got a soul but not much of anything else, and Angel wants to know why.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my "Rekindle Spangel" fic, in under the wire!
> 
> Set in an alternate Buffy Season 7/ Angel Season 5 (Alternate enough to change how they line up, yes. :P)
> 
> Warnings for some questionable consent.

Angel had heard a vague rumor about vampire dancers at the smokey little dive. It wasn’t something worth exploring, really, not a real sign of wrong-doing, but the truth was, a lame lead at a strip club was far more appealing than the lame leads he had elsewhere in the city. He didn’t know if crime had dropped sharply since he took over as CEO of Wolfram and Hart, or if they were cleverly hiding it from him. Either way, he had to make his decisions quickly, since his patrols were limited to his ‘free time.’

Angel had never had a steady job in all is long life. Not one where he was responsible to someone other than himself. He had underestimated how draining it was, just going somewhere every day for set hours, whether you wanted to or not.

So, okay, he was trumping up a rumor as an excuse to go to a gay strip club in the hopes that there were sexy vampires there he could ogle and then stake. It had been a hard week and he was allowing himself this one.

The club was just a hole in the wall, one of those old two-story shop buildings, an empty storefront next door and a convenience grocer on the other side. Second floor windows were mostly dark and shuttered. The steel door opened into what looked like a rough biker bar, narrow and dark. Scary, bearded men in lots of leather on barstools looked up at him like he was wearing a pink frilly dress. Compared to them, he almost was. Angel suddenly felt this was a bad idea. But he heard more lively music and saw colorful lights through a doorway in the back.

“Two drink minimum in the back room,” the grizzled bartender said, following his gaze. Angel nodded and headed toward the music.

A bead curtain separated the two rooms, and stepping through it was like slipping between dimensions – he had experience with that, it wasn’t an empty simile. Whereas the front room had been every shade of black and chrome and unpolished wood, the back room was painted a lush purple, a disco ball flooding every surface with rainbow sprinkles. The bartender was younger and wearing suspenders over his bare chest. On a tiny stage, a young man in a speedo was making love to a steel pole. His ass was small and tight and nicely shaped, but Angel thought he was a bit pale and skinny for his tastes. He sat at the bar and ordered whiskey. At this point, he should start asking questions, but it was loud in the back room, and guys at strip clubs don’t, as a rule, socialize with each other. Not if they hadn’t come in together. He sipped his drink and scanned the crowd. It was a mixed group. Grizzled and sleek, blue and white collar. A man in a business suit with day-old grey stubble ran his hand up the dancer’s leg, and the dancer obligingly swayed his tight little ass back and forth, lowering to where the guy could slip his dollar into the g-string.

That’s when Angel saw the dancer’s face for the first time, just a glimpse, from the side, something familiar in the jut of the cheekbone had Angel sitting up. Then the dancer turned to face forward and there was no doubt. Platinum hair worked into a froth of spikes, dark eyebrows, one pierced by a scar, and those crystal blue eyes, staring sightlessly out against the bright stage lights. Spike. The little shit was in LA again!

A stranger would have been fun, a little tussle, a little justice. Spike? Was family, responsibility and emotional baggage. Also hard to kill. Angel felt a sour taste in his mouth and covered it with whisky.

The song was coming to an end. Spike slunk around the edges of the tiny stage, lowering to a knee-crawl and bending back in a move that might have been considered a bit of a finale, or just lewd gyrating closer to the hands with dollars in them. Angel got up and approached the stage as the music cut out and Spike hopped down into the crowd. There was a vestigial smattering of applause. Most men had money or something else in their hands and it wasn’t a big production. Spike worked around the front of the stage, collecting his tips. His glance happened to fall on Angel, and stopped. Spike cleared his throat, thanked the fellow currently groping him, and beat a hasty retreat toward the bar. Angel followed.

At the end of the bar, a bouncer stepped between him and Spike. “Staff only beyond this point.”

“I know him.”

The bouncer kept a firm hand on Angel’s chest. “Not while he’s working, you don’t.”

Angel hated that he could probably overpower the bouncer, but shouldn’t. He felt his heart beating in his palm. “Spike!” Angel shouted.

And Spike turned, just for a moment, and at the closer distance, Angel got the second shock of the night - something deep and painful in Spike’s eyes that pulled at Angel’s heart.

Spike had a soul.

Stilled by shock, Angel offered no resistance as the bouncer pushed him back into the main area of the club and Spike disappeared through a door behind the bar.

***

Angel stared at his desk blotter. Eve was prattling on about some sadist or monster they had to get off the hook. Angel was imagining the conversation that would occur if he asked Wolfram and Hart to bend their resources to finding out what was going on with Spike.

“Oh, there’s another soulled vampire? We don’t have to put up with you? Sweet. He’s probably emotionally vulnerable, being all freshly soulled and confused, and we can easily trick him into becoming our puppet of evil! Clear your desk out by the end of the week, okay?”

He looked up to see Eve frowning. “You aren’t listening at all, are you?”

“Take it to Gunn,” Angel said. “I have a call to make.”

Eve smiled tightly. “Fine.” And stalked out on her tiny little heels. Ever the professional.

Angel picked up the phone and drew his rolodex close. Who could he call? Giles? Willow? He stared at the special “Sunnydale” tag. He sighed and dialed.

There was a crackle on the line, but she picked up after the first ring. “Hello?”

Angel cleared his throat. “Hi, Buffy. It’s me. Uh… I mean it’s…”

“Angel. Yeah, I think I know your stammer. Hold on a second.” He heard the sound of a door closing. “What is it? Apocalypse?”

“Can’t I just call you for no reason?”

“Recent history says no.”

Angel grimaced. “It’s not that I don’t mean to call. We’re just busy here. And I know you’re busy, too.”

“No, you don’t know that. You’d have to call to know that. It’s apoca-light around here.” Buffy sounded playful as much as chiding.

Angel felt guilty that he did, in fact, know things were quiet in Sunnydale. Having secret agents stalk your ex for you was probably not healthy. He cleared his throat again. “I wanted to ask you about something. It’s kind of personal and I understand if you don’t want to talk about it.”

There was a pause. “Is this a relationship thing? Are you drunk?”

Angel smiled. “No. That’s not it. It’s, well, I wanted to ask about Spike, actually.”

There was a longer pause. Angel started to worry they’d become disconnected. “Buffy?”

“Spike?” Buffy’s voice was quiet.

“Yeah. The last I had heard, he was living in Sunnydale. Kind of helping you out. The reluctant ally. The, uh, microchip thing?”

“Spike isn’t here anymore,” Buffy said, flatly.

“Did he say anything when he left? I mean, about where he was going? What he was going to do?”

“He disappeared in the middle of the night over a year ago. No note, no message. He left me to handle a near world-ending on my own and I’m really not happy about that. Wait…why are you asking? What did he do?”

“I’m not sure yet. I was hoping you’d know.”

“Way with the cryptic, Angel.”

“I’m sorry. I do that. Look, I’ll call you again soon, I promise.”

“LA isn’t that far from Sunnydale. You could come by and slay something now and then. You could use the PR. Giles is super pissed about this law firm thingy. He says you’ve gone to the dark side and are too naïve to see it.”

“Tell him I’m older than he is.”

“I’m thinking age doesn’t make maturity happen on its own,” Buffy said, sounding more mature than Angel realized she could. “Good-bye, Angel.”

“Bye,” he said, and listened to her hang up.

Something had happened in Sunnydale. Something made Buffy so hesitant and quiet when Spike’s name came up. Angel’s detective instincts told him that plainly. But he also could tell, by the way she spoke, by what she didn’t say, that Buffy didn’t know about Spike’s soul.

He had no choice but to ask Spike himself.

***

It wasn’t hard to assign a few security personnel to case out the strip club and report on Spike’s schedule.

Angel wondered if any of the men he was paying slipped dollars in Spike’s thong, and if they enjoyed it, or were just doing it to blend in. He wasn’t sure which scenario annoyed him more.

The club operated six days a week, and Spike danced on all of them, at 5 and 9 o’clock on Tuesdays and Thursdays and at 6 and 8 on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Saturdays the show went from noon to midnight and he danced at 1, 5, 8 and 11. He never left the building. Registered blueprints showed a staircase connecting the bar to an office on the second floor. There were three offices on the second floor. The other two had been converted to apartments and had required fire-escape entrances on the outside of the building. Spike was either sleeping in the office, or one of the apartments had an undisclosed-by-blueprints door to it. The building was flanked by others, making the alleyway entrances vampire-safe most of the day. The apartment on the north end of the building was occupied by a young mother and her two children. The apartment on the south end had a single man living there, who was also seen coming and going from the bar. He was muscular with a clean-shaven head and a penchant for wearing leather – someone who would not be out of place in the front half of the club. Angel decided to talk to him, first.

He drew a sketch of Spike. He hadn’t meant to, but he drew him smiling, eyes twinkling. A Spike fresh from the kill. He wondered what prompted his subconscious to call Spike forward like that. He supposed it was just the way he was most used to thinking of him.

Angel loitered around the stairs up to the apartment at a time when his sources said the bald man – a David Stone, by coincidence also owner of the strip club – would habitually return home.

Angel was not disappointed. The man came around the corner of the building precisely on time, a paper grocery bag tucked under his arm. He saw Angel right away and stopped his steps, looking suspicious.

“Hi,” said Angel, trying for non-threatening. “I was wondering if you’ve seen this man.” He held out the picture of Spike.

David Stone looked down at the picture briefly, not making any move to take it. “You a cop?”

“No. Private detective.”

“What’s he charged with?”

“It’s not a criminal investigation. His family wants to find him.”

David’s mouth moved back and forth, like he was sawing his teeth. “Let me put this down,” he said, hoisting the grocery bag.

“Sure,” Angel said. He followed David up the narrow metal stairs and waited patiently while the man unlocked his apartment and stepped through the door. Angel looked through the open door, watching him set his grocery bag down on a dinette table.

David turned to face him. “You’re a liar,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Spike doesn’t have a family to be looking for him, and if you were a detective, you wouldn’t have gotten this close without finding him where he is right now – waggling his ass on my stage next door.”

Angel rested his arm against the doorframe. “Do you now _what_ Spike is?”

“Intimately. And if you’re the same as he is, you can’t walk through that open door.”

Crap. Angel bit his lip, trying to think fast. “I’m not – did Spike tell you he has a soul?”

David gave Angel a slightly amused smirk. “You some kind of vampire missionary? I know Spike’s got some thing in his head that won’t let him hurt people.”

“The chip. Right. I’m… I’m like Spike. I don’t hurt people.”

David leaned back against his kitchen counter, arms folded. “He told me there weren’t any other vampires like him and if I ever find myself near another vampire, to run inside, don’t invite him in, and wait for dear Spike to come stake the bastard for me. So that’s what we’re going to do.”

“Spike isn’t going to be finished dancing for almost an hour.”

David smirked. “Knew you were lying.”

Angel sighed. “Look… I just want to talk to Spike. If I leave my number with you, will you give it to him?”

David looked up briefly, as if considering. “No,” he said.

They locked gazes, neither one wavering. Angel settled himself against the fire escape railing. “Then I guess we wait.”

“I guess we do,” David said, and went back to unpacking his groceries, which consisted of a quart of milk, butter, and a tub the exact color milky-white plastic gets when it holds fresh pig’s blood.

Angel approached the door, inhaling deeply. What he smelled stopped him dead. “You’re fucking him!” Angel hadn’t meant it to come out at all, much less the way it sounded – jealous and petty – and he didn’t like the way David looked at him. Like his lover’s stalking ex. Not that Angel got that a lot. (Stupid Riley.)

“And you want to _talk_ to him,” David said. “You know, for twenty dollars next door you can do a whole lot more than talk.”

“We’re family,” Angel said, summoning his dignity. He tossed a business card into the crappy little apartment. “Tell him Angel stopped by.”

He turned his back and unhurriedly walked down the steps. In the ally behind the building, he could faintly hear the pumping bass of the strip club.

He should have gone back to the office. It was his intention to go back to the office. He had spent enough time, already, trying to figure Spike out. Was he Spike’s keeper? No. He wasn’t even his _friend_. Never had been, really. So Spike was living in a ratty apartment with a strip-club owner and dancing for him. So? Maybe they were happy together, and as long as Spike wasn’t killing, what did he care?

But Angel found his feet carrying him back to the club, through the bar to the back room, where he ordered two shots of Jamieson and asked the bartender if the dancers offered private sessions.

“Twenty bucks for a lap dance,” the bartender said, not pausing in pouring out the whisky.

“Can I request a specific dancer?”

The bartender regarded him as one would a fresh-faced blushing teen. “Benny’s doing them right now. If you want Spike, you’ll have to wait for him to come off stage.”

“I can wait,” Angel said, handing over the money for his two drinks and an extra twenty.

The bartender looked down at the money for a moment before gathering it up. “Just twenty?”

“That’s the price you just quoted.”

“You asked for Spike.”

“So?”

“So, Spike’s got special rules. For a little extra, you can have an extra good time,” The bartender said, talking slowly like Angel was an idiot.

“Just twenty,” Angel ground out between clenched teeth and picked up his two glasses of whisky.

The wait, of course, gave him ample time to question the motivations for his new course of investigation and find them lacking. From the tiny stage, Spike’s eyes honed in on him like lasers. No more would the lights and a hundred men soaked in testosterone hide him from Spike’s alerted senses.

Though for his part, Spike did not falter in his seductive dance. This wasn’t a Chippendale review; there were no fancy outfits or routines. He wore a pair of low-slung leather pants, a t-shirt lay on the floor behind him, and he was deep-throating a cherry popsicle with sloppy enthusiasm, letting the candy-colored syrup drip aesthetically down his torso.

Angel found it hard to remember why he was there with Spike staring straight at him and pumping that red cylinder in and out of his pouting lips. His other hand smeared cherry drips over his nipples and snaked down his undulating belly to graze the taut line of leather below his hip-bones. It was a relief when he twirled around the pole to lavish his attention on the other side of the room, but then Angel found himself watching the light sliding over his tight round ass-cheeks. The leather coated them like none-too-thick paint. Those cheeks circled, clenched, and thrust forward, and with a rapid-fire sound of snaps tearing free, the leather pants joined the shirt on the floor and Angel was looking at milky white flesh toped by two tiny cherry-red straps that disappeared into the cleft, making Angel wonder, not for the first time, just how structurally cohesive such a garment could be. Maybe it was actually painted on?

The popsicle made a slow progression down Spike’s body, painting a sticky trail over his hip. Angel followed it on its path back up and caught Spike looking right at him with open contempt. As quick as the expression appeared, it vanished into a smooth, vaguely sultry mask as Spike’s eyes traveled the rest of the crowd and he gave the popsicle long, languid licks and worked his hips lower and more into the reaching distance of paying customers.

Angel’s mouth was dry, his two drinks were consumed, and he was so painfully hard there was no chance he could will his cock down before it was time for his private audience. He retreated to the bar for another whisky and knocked it back thinking of board meetings and filling out forms. It almost worked. He ordered another. The music came to an end and he turned to see Spike slithering his way off stage into the eager hands of his public, the popsicle nowhere to be seen.

Angel’s mind immediately flashed a variety of scenarios for it final demise, all of which made him glad he hadn’t been watching.

Spike smiled and made small-talk with the customers while they groped and stroked him like he was public property. Angel wanted to smack them away. One guy in particular was taking far more time than necessary inserting a dollar… and did he need both hands to do it?

Angel moved to follow Spike as he passed behind the bar, but the same bouncer as before held him off until, an age later, the bartender gave him a signal. “Go through that curtain,” the bouncer said, pointing to his left, where a curtained doorway stood. “And wait.”

Given the general seediness of the place, Angel hadn’t expected a plush boudoir, but he’d still expected better than a closet with faux wood paneling, a folding chair, and a boom box on the floor. The overlaying smells of desperation and spunk, old and recent, added to the charm.

Angel took a seat and waited, thinking annoyed thoughts and no longer quite as worried he’d greet Spike with a noticeable hard-on.

At last the curtain parted and Spike slouched in, glaring at him like an adversary, wearing nothing but the cherry-red thong and a leather dog collar. He smelled of faintly of soap and sugar over the pervasive, intermingled spendings of many men, which was the default smell of the whole place. Angel stood. “I just want to talk.”

Spike’s lip curled. He dropped neatly to hit the ‘play’ button on the boom box. The room filled with sultry beats and he took his time unfolding from his crouch, stretching. “Song’s four minutes, Peaches. That’s the time you’ve paid for.” He folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “So let’s have it. Come to judge? Or just warn me off snacking on the sad lonely old poufs?”

“You have a soul,” Angel said.

Spike’s eyes widened a bit – had he thought he could hide it? He quickly looked away to better hide his expression. “Doesn’t mean I’m going to rush into your arms and ask your sage advice.”

Angel approached Spike, reaching out, but stopped himself from touching him. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Spike smirked at him.

“Yes. I can see you’re a stripper. Why? It’s not like you. Why aren’t you still helping Buffy? Why do you have a soul?”

Something shuttered in Spike’s face. He leaned his head back, long throat exposed. “Buffy didn’t tell you why I left?”

Angel just shook his head, not about to get into a conversation about Buffy with Spike, much less admit that Spike had probably shared more confidences with her more recently.

“Well then,” Spike said. “It’s her tale to tell, not mine. Let’s just say I fucked up. I thought getting a soul was the solution. Feel free to laugh.”

Angel gripped Spike’s biceps. To his utter surprise, Spike let him. “You can’t throw this away. You need to get out of this dump and go find redemption. It doesn’t just come to you. I wasted nearly a century before someone set me right. Don’t do the same.” He shook Spike, just a little, and Spike’s head hit the wall.

Spike hardly reacted. There was something frighteningly empty in his eyes. “This is where I live now. This is my job. Your approval isn’t required. You paid your twenty bucks, so you have me until the song ends, but that’s it. I’ll even dance, if you ask.” His lids lowered and he licked his lower lip. “Know you’re trying your masochistic best to deny you want it.”

Angel realized at this point that he was leaning into Spike, pressing him into the wall, their faces barely inches apart. He backed off. “I didn’t come here to fondle you.”

“No, you usually have some other goal in mind at first.”

Angel let go of him and moved as far from Spike as the little room would let him. He needed the space to think. “Something’s not right here. Why didn’t you just refuse to see me?”

Spike affected a bored expression and looked down at the boom-box as if gauging how much time was left.

“That’s it,” Angel said. “You couldn’t, could you?” Spike’s jaw tightened. “Don’t try to deny it. You’ve looked at the door every five seconds since you got here. You can’t wait for the time to be up. So why come in at all? What happens, Spike, when you say no?”

The contempt was back. “Piss off. I’m not one of your bleeding ‘helpless’. It’s a job. One I want to keep.”

“That’s all that’s keeping you here? Smelling like a thousand sweaty palms? A job. And if I did want that lap dance?”

Spike was on him in a blink, crowding him to the back corner of the cubicle. His hands snaked into Angel’s hair and he brushed their cheeks together as he ground his groin against Angel’s in a slow, practiced move. Angel hardened so fast he was surprised there wasn’t a springing sound.

And then Spike let go, stepping back, just as the music stopped. “Do us both a favor, Peaches, and don’t come back.”

Angel grabbed his arm as he turned to exit. Spike just stopped in place, not looking at him. “I actually did come here to help you, Spike. And to understand.”

The curtain pulled back, revealing the bouncer. “Problem, Spike?”

“Nah.” Spike pulled from Angel’s grip and gave him one last, cryptic look before ducking under the bouncer’s outstretched arm.

The bouncer then looked at Angel like he was a mess left behind by an evicted roommate. Angel took the subtle hint and indicated he’d be on his way as soon as it wasn’t blocked.

***

Behind the bar, on the opposite side from the closet converted into a lap-dance booth, was a door to the back room, which itself was just the bottom landing to a staircase. At the top of the stairs was David’s office. At the bottom was a battered old mirror and a bench littered with props and costume pieces. Here Spike retreated, only realizing his fists where clenched when he took a moment to calm himself.

Wait five minutes, he told himself. Give Angel a chance to properly bugger off, and then he would re-take the floor before anyone noticed he’d taken an unscheduled powder-break.

A door opened, overhead. “Spike.”

Spike flinched reflexively, and turned to see David standing at the top of the stairs. “Just on my way back out,” he said, waving.

David’s voice stopped him moments from escape. “There’s another vampire nosing about. Called himself ‘Angel’.”

“So he’s conveniently introduced himself? That’s why I ducked in here. Give the old pouf a chance to miss me.”

David walked unhurriedly down the stairs, fixing Spike with a glare that turned his guts to ice and kept him frozen to the spot. “You never said anything about other vampires coming after you.”

“Honestly didn’t expect it to happen. Angel… we don’t exactly send each other Christmas cards. What were the odds he’d just show up?”

David had reached him at this point and carded his fingers through Spike’s hair. “Baby, you know I hate it when you’re a passive-aggressive bitch.”

“There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing to tell. He came, paid for a lap dance so he could tell me how my current gig sullied the family name, and left.”

David’s hands were hot, rubbing firmly over Spike’s scalp, pulling his head back by the hair-roots. “Did you fuck him?”

Spike risked a few hairs with a quick head-shake. “He didn’t even want the dance. Just talked.”

“Don’t play dumb, darling, though it is a part you do so well. Not just now, but in general. Has Mr. Angel ever had his dick inside your delectably fuckable ass?”

Spike was crap at lying, and David was looking right through him. He’d already paused too long and got a hard shake for his trouble.

David threw him against the wall. “You’re so stupid. This prick wants you for himself.”

“No, it’s not like that. Ang…” Spike was cut off by having his head knocked against the wall.

“Here’s what’s going to happen. If that vampire comes back, you’re going to stake him.”

Spike licked his lips. “Not that I can’t take him, but…”

“But? But nothing.”

Spike inhaled deeply and bit the bullet. “I’ve not had much luck in the Angel-killing department in the past.” He tried to gauge how much shit he was in by the flare of David’s nostrils. “I’ve tried, you see. Me and him have both had a go at trying to kill each other.”

David let him go and stepped back. “Then the next time he shows up, fuck him.”

“Dave…”

“I’m not joking. Give him a real good reason to keep you right where you are. Hell, I might even throw him a discount. Now get back to work. Benny’s got to be exhausted waiting for your ass.”

Spike knew when to beat a hasty retreat, and did so, back into the noise and spinning lights of the nightclub.

He hoped Angel would lose whatever bug was up his arse and not come back. It was shaping up to be a humiliating day all around. His eyes immediately landed on one of his least-favorite regulars, a gentleman with a lazy eye, unkempt hair and a perpetual stink of unwashed clothes about him.

Spike lifted his head, pasted on a smile, and sallied forth. Lazy-eye had already spotted him and was eyeing him like a alcoholic seeing a tray of whisky shots coming his way. The slime would take as much as he could get away with in the public area, mauling Spike with his too-soft hands, and inevitably request one of the ‘special’ lap-dances.

And Spike usually enjoyed ‘popsicle night’ so.


	2. Chapter 2

Angel didn’t show up in the strip club again that week, but Spike found his thoughts drifting to him, helplessly. He told himself it was just the endless fascination of a car accident, but really… he wished they could have really spoken – said the hard and needful things before the inevitable fight. The other soulled vampire. There were so many things Spike couldn’t talk about with David, or anyone else. For a while, that had been a good thing – he didn’t want to brood over his sins, he wanted to learn to live with them. But Angel brought all this tempting angst with him.

And he was a damn sight better looking than Spike’s usual customers.

The apartment Spike shared with David wasn’t large or well-furnished, but it did afford a very convenient commute to work and it had a recently refurbished bathroom. It was hard to believe David, who separated his laundry into black, blacker, and blackest, had picked out the mauve tile and southwestern motif, but he had, with an eye toward the future sale of the apartment to someone with less gothic tastes.

After his last “dance”, Spike would creep up to the apartment, quietly so as not to wake David, who retired most nights well before closing, and indulge in a long hot shower surrounded by faux-stone and the stinging smell of David’s “musk” shampoo. It helped drive the feel and smell of loathsome men from his skin. It was especially nice on Saturday night, after working all day and night, knowing that the club would be closed on Sunday and he could sleep in and heal up a bit.

He didn’t like the bathroom, though, not when he wasn’t in the shower.

His earliest memory of David, and the apartment, was leaning over the terracotta sink, staring at David in the mirror, not quite comprehending in his addled state why David’s hands were gripping a box of air in front of his groin or why he was humping the air. He didn’t associate the pain with David – he was always in pain those days, but so relieved to have had a shower, he imagined he’d vanished into steam.

Later he would pretend he didn’t remember it at all, because David seemed to prefer that. No, it hadn’t been pure philanthropy that had caused David to pick up a mad, newly-souled vampire and take him home and clean him up, but Spike could forgive that because, as even David admitted, he’d abandoned his original plan to fuck Spike and chuck him back outside. “Because you cleaned up a lot better than any other homeless fuck I’d used,” he’d said, romantically squeezing a handful of ass. But also, when Spike had been lucid enough to explain why all the chicken soup in the world wasn’t going to fix him up and fill him out, David hadn’t called the loony bin, or even consulted Bram Stoker. He’d just set a thawing steak on top of a funnel. Pragmatic. That was Dave.

Still, Spike didn’t linger often by the sink. He toweled off quickly, brushed his teeth, and headed straight for bed. David was already there, asleep on his side of the queen-sized mattress. Spike slipped in carefully and slowly let himself start to relax into sleep.

He awoke alone, which wasn’t uncommon. David had various other projects that kept him out and about during the day, the bar being primarily an evening concern. What was uncommon was the sound of knocking pulling him from his rest.

David did not get many visitors – usually one of his two business partners, who each had a key to the place. It could be a door-to-door salesman. Did they still have those?

The knocking did not go away and just persisted, followed after a pause by Angel’s voice shouting, “Spike, I know you’re in there.”

Spike groaned. He was sore. He was always sore, these days. Still, considering his options, and Dave’s last instructions to him, he grimly pulled himself from the comfy bed and reached for the plastic tub where he kept his clothes.

***

Angel had about given up when the door finally opened, revealing a bed-rumpled Spike in a pair of shredded blue jeans and a cropped black muscle top which he had obviously put on inside-out so Angel wouldn’t see the word ‘bitch’ silkscreened on the front, visible by the patches of smoothness the letters created.

“You look like a refugee,” Angel said.

“Why thank you for the compliment, Peaches. Piss off.”

Angel shoved his arm in the way as Spike tried to slam the door. Spike backed up a pace, looking worriedly at the threshold. “David?”

“Alive and well.” Angel stepped the rest of the way in and closed the door behind him. “But I wasn’t sure until just now that ‘he’s at my place now, go’, uh…” Angel coughed to cover the pause as he edited David’s actual words, “…’get him if you want’ constituted an invite.”

Spike’s suddenly bleak expression implied he hadn’t been fooled by subtle coughing. “So did you pay Dave, or will this be in return for fucking-off rendered?”

“I’m not here to screw you.”

Spike tore his t-shirt off over his head and advanced on Angel. “No? Are we sure about that? What does Little Angelus think?” He reached for Angel’s crotch.

Angel only just managed to back out of groping distance, getting a gentle fingertip-graze that sent an unwanted shower of tingles through his dick. “I got the hard sell from your pimp already. You should know me better than that.”

Spike stopped. “Know you better how? All those long, gossipy chats we’ve had since your soul came back?” Tilting his head back defiantly, he undid his fly, letting the loose confederation of jean-tatters fall.

Angel hadn’t exactly been sowing oats lately and had recently endured two performances of Spike’s best seduction moves, so he could be forgiven a momentary pause while his cock stood up and declared the excellence and succinctness of Spike’s argument. Spike stepped out of his jeans and advanced on Angel, who was beginning to hate the part of ‘reluctant john’. He grabbed Spike’s wrists and held him off. “What does he have on you, to make you do this?”

Spike rocked on the balls of his feet and grinned, making Angel an involuntary participant in playful hand-holding. “Nothing. David’s got nothing ‘on’ me. No spells, no tricks, no skullduggery. I can leave when I like.”

Angel dropped Spike’s wrists. “Then why…”

Spike kissed him, hard, on the mouth, and didn’t let up the pressure for a full minute while trying to wrap his arms and legs around a struggling Angel.

Angel tried at first just to get out of the hold, then to hold Spike still. Finally he grabbed Spike and slammed him down on the nearest surface.

Spike laid his head back against the linoleum counter, stretching like he was comfortable with his mid-back against the sink edge. “That’s right. Just like that.”

Angel looked down at him, his parted lips, the strange, almost panicked look in his eyes, and though he felt every contour of Spike’s naked body against his clothed one, he felt like there was a chasm between them.

So he bridged it with a kiss. A careful, chaste kiss that left Spike staring at him in open confusion. Angel used the moment of stillness to draw Spike up off the counter so they were both standing. “Yes,” he said, “I do want you. I’d only look like an idiot denying it at this point. But I’d be more of an idiot if I traded in having your heart for having your body.”

Spike squinted, then snorted. “Pouf.”

“I was trying for meaningful.”

“Yeah, well, you passed it by on your way to the poufiest speech ever.” Spike’s hands stole around Angel’s hips, gently, not pulling them close. Yet. He looked down. “Davey thinks you’re my ex come to steal me away from him. I told him I stuck hot pokers through you. Given Davey’s kinks, it didn’t change his mind. He thinks if I make it clear the milk is free, you’ll abandon any cattle rustling plans.” Spike looked Angel in the eye at last.

Angel ran his hands over Spike’s shoulders and down his back, drawing him closer. “Tell Davey I intend to steal his boyfriend.”

“You’re not going to,” Spike said, sober as a judge.

But Angel smiled. Spike’s ass felt perfect in his hands, like it belonged there, and he nestled their groins together, kissing up the side of Spike’s neck. “We’ll see.”

“Hate to break it to you, Peaches, but I’ve seen your act before. It won’t work.”

Angel chuckled against the moving throat, kissing Spike’s dismissive words before they left his lips, because he knew how to undo Spike. He was gentle. Careful. Slow. Spike was like tempered glass – impervious to a hammer blow, but if you stroked him just right, he’d shatter.

And Spike had already made it clear he wasn’t going to fight Angel off. All Angel had to do was still his hands, slow him down. Spike started unbuttoning Angel’s shirt from the bottom and Angel took his hands before he finished, kissed the fingers, and took Spike’s muttered “pouf” as a sign he was winning.

If David had an objection to sharing his bed with paying interlopers, Spike didn’t bring it up as Angel laid him out on the rumpled, musky sheets. Leather cuffs on short chains jangled against the iron head-board, sparking jealousy in Angel, and now he was fighting himself to keep things light and slow. The mixed scents on the sheets – a hundred past ruttings – made him want to tear Spike’s skin off so it could re-grow clean and untouched. Instead Angel ran his fingers gently down pebbling flesh.

Spike’s legs spread, his hips canting up to urge Angel into action. “Go on.”

Spike took Angel’s hand, guiding it to his entrance, but didn’t object when Angel took a side trip to grasp his cock. He took his time exploring the silky feel of it, sliding the foreskin back. Angel ducked and licked a stripe across the head, causing Spike to hiss and arch upward.

Angel jacked his cock lazily, feeling it fill and harden pleasantly in his hand, then he let his fingers travel south, keeping his eyes locked with Spike’s. He saw the look of shameful triumph when his fingers broached muscle that was more relaxed than he was expecting. Of course, Spike had had sex recently. A lot. And recently. Angel closed his eyes, willing himself to calm.

“Go on,” Spike said, again, challenging. “Don’t tell me you’re too precious for well-trod ground after Darla.”

Angel froze. Spike wasn’t the only one with new emotional baggage since the last time they’d been together. Spike pressed against Angel’s fingers and reached for his dick, wrapping his legs around Angel to keep him there. “Fuck me,” he said. “I’ve got a schedule.”

Angel knew, almost immediately, that he should have stopped, found some near-clothing-like object for Spike, and brought things back down to talking. This was not, of course, what he did. What he did was slam Spike into the mattress, slam INTO Spike, and thrust four times before he realized he had his hands around his throat, which wasn’t the most tender and loving gesture he could have made.

And Spike just laid there, a resigned look on his face. The look of a man who had finished his part in the current drama. Angel moved his hands up to Spike’s face, and kissed him, bit his lip and growled into his teeth, demanding he be present. After only a moment of lax compliance, Spike kissed back, hard, bite for bite. Blood smeared on their lips and tongues.

Whatever ground Angel had lost, he thought he’d gotten back, because Spike was clinging to him desperately, fighting sweat and gravity to hang on. Angel kneeled on the bed, holding Spike who rode against him with all his strength, hissing half-audible curses between mouthfuls of Angel’s skin. Spike bit into him savagely, jaws tightening around his collar bone. The pain was rich and potent. Angel plunged his fangs into the delicious neck in front of him, reveling in the feel of flesh tearing and the familiar taste. They were locked together above and below. When a foggy concern toward his partner’s happiness managed to break through the lust-cloud, Angel worked a hand between them, finding Spike’s cock, slippery between their bellies. The head nudged his hand, thrusting against him. He grasped it and jacked for all he was worth, matching the job Spike was doing on him, squeezing and pushing until everything tensed and exploded. Angel was so seized by his orgasm he thought it was his own come painting his chest.

He came down to find himself over a boneless pile of Spike. A drop of sweat fell from Angel’s nose to Spike’s cheek. Spike wiped it and looked away.

Angel sighed. He was exhausted, but the smell of the room was really starting to get to him. “That…” he sighed. “That didn’t quite go as planned.”

“Mm? Did for me.” Spike rubbed his fingers together and touched his bloodied lip.

Angel supposed he was hankering for a cigarette, which was a smell he hadn’t detected in the apartment. With a Herculean effort, he sat up. “Spike. Let’s just… just come with me, back to my place.”

“Nah,” Spike said, chewing on a nail. “Got nothing to wear.”

Angel yanked open a dresser drawer – the room was small enough that he didn’t have to get off the bed to do so. Grabbing what he found inside, he tossed it at Spike, unsurprised to see it was a black cotton t-shirt.

Spike pushed the shirt off of his chest like it was on fire. “Are you mental? That’s David’s stuff. Mine’s there.” Spike pointed with one foot at a little plastic tub sitting half under the bed. Angel, too confused not to investigate, pulled it out to see several brightly colored g-strings and something made of black leather straps that could have been a garment, but it was hard to tell.

“I’ve got those jeans,” Spike added, “for when company comes.”

The little tub hit the floor. “Yeah, that makes it all better. You’re not a hostage at all. You’ve got jeans.”

Spike drew his knees in to his chest. Bleeding from the neck and lips, he looked straight out of a horror movie, the helpless victim, miraculously still alive but waiting the end in the evil monster’s lair. He spoke quietly, looking at a random spot on the bed. “Don’t judge it. There’s different kinds of love, yeah?”

“Please, enlighten me to the kind of love where you keep someone locked up without even a pair of shoes to their name, and make them demean themselves for money.”

“After the soul, I took a nice dive off the deep end. David picked me up off the street, ranting and gibbering and smelling like I’d taken a bath in the sewer. He cleaned me up, fed me and nursed me back to health and sanity. I owe him everything.”

“You don’t owe him this,” Angel said, trying to encompass the entire situation in “this”.

“He wrote it all up, what I owe him. Blood, rent, clothes, whisky, pills. He’s got a ledger, and every dollar I bring in goes toward paying if off.”

“Pills?”

Spike sighed. He picked up the T-shirt and slid off the bed, setting it back in its drawer. “I told you I went barmy. Didn’t come back from that without some chemical assistance.”

“How much does this asshole say you owe him? I’ll pay it.”

Spike fussed with the shirt in the drawer, presumably trying to hide any evidence it had been taken out without its owner’s permission. “I don’t know if I want it all paid back. Every week, David gets his ledger out, shows me how much I made, how much I cost him, and the amount I owe goes down a little bit. It makes me feel I’m accomplishing some small thing, paying this off. I don’t know what I’ll do when that’s done. What I’ll live for.”

Angel strongly suspected, given what he knew about men like David, that Spike would never, in fact, pay it all off. There would be a charge added for a slow tip night, or a fee for sleeping in. Angel didn’t doubt that the thrift-store jeans were recorded as costing a thousand dollars. Long life and fluctuating currency left vampires with a lot of confusion over fair pricing – it would be child’s play to exploit. “Paying off an extortionist isn’t a life’s work, Spike.”

“No. I suspect you’d rather I donned a pair of tights and played Robin to your Batman.” Spike closed the dresser and walked past Angel, apparently comfortable in his nudity.

Angel followed him into the kitchen. “Does it help? The degradation, the abuse? Does it make you feel like you’re suffering for your sins?”

Spike held two fingers up and continued on his way to the fridge, where he got out the container of blood.

Angel sighed in frustration and went back to the bedroom to gather his clothes. He stopped in the bathroom, which he found to be much nicer than the rest of the apartment, and washed his hands and face. The clean scent of the soap was welcome. When he came back to the kitchen, Spike was sitting, still naked, at the dinette, a coffee mug of warmed pig’s blood in his hands.

Angel raised and lowered his arms. “So is this it? Wham, bam, thank you Angel?”

“Don’t let the door hit you,” Spike smiled.

“Just give me one reason – one real reason – why it wouldn’t be better to help others.”

Spike scowled. “I help others.”

“Who? David? You help him buy more leather pants?”

Spike rolled his eyes extravagantly and took a sip of his blood. “You think he wouldn’t have some other poor bastard chained to the bed-post if I weren’t here?”

“You’re not saving anyone by just making sure the evil hits you first.”

Spike half-shrugged. “And what you do? Does it matter? Can any million acts of kindness ever tip the scales or erase one bloody murder from your record? Can it bring the dead back to life?”

This was an argument Angel was ready for, because it’s one he’d had with himself. “No,” he said, “of course not. But you can’t refuse to do what’s right because it doesn’t do enough for you in return. You do what you have to because you know it needs to be done. Because people are still dying needlessly. Because to the person you save, it doesn’t matter where you came from or why.”

“And you saving me – that’s not with any hope of personal reward.” Spike smirked.

“It isn’t.”

Spike shook his head. He set down his mug. “David has these moods – breakdowns. Starts going on about how useless his life is, how no one loves him. The club was supposed to be phase one of a meteoric rise to wealth and fame.” Spike smiled sadly. “Someone’s got to hold the sad old git and tell him it’s all right. Because he really doesn’t have anyone else.”

Angel felt his stomach drop. It was much worse than he thought. “You’re not going to call this love, are you? He’s using you.”

“Maybe that’s what love is,” Spike said.

Angel wanted to throttle him, which didn’t make for a good counter-argument. He got out his cell phone. “Harm? Get me the police. No, the tip line. I’ve got a lead on a prostitution ring.”

Spike smacked the phone from Angel’s hand. From the floor, Harmony’s tiny voice asked, “Hello? Bossy?”

“You bastard,” Spike said, “Do you have any idea what would happen if you sent the cops in here?”

“Hrm. Let me think. A dick named David goes to prison.”

“IF he doesn’t stake me just to hide the evidence, I will never forgive you.”

Angel sighed. He bent to pick up his phone. “I already told you. It isn’t about forgiveness.”

“Get out of my bloody apartment.”

“Get some pants on,” Angel countered, because it just needed to be said.

Though he hated seeing the hurt and betrayal, he had to look back at Spike before he left. He got a coffee mug thrown at him for his trouble.

*****

Spike’s face was mottled with bruises, one eye swollen shut, his hands cuffed behind him. He wore a pair of LAPD sweat pants and nothing else, his bare feet restless against the linoleum floor.

Angel grabbed an officer by the arm. “Why is he cuffed?”

“I don’t know, sir. The…”

“Get them off him now or you’re going to lose them.”

Angel paced while the officer checked with another and then produced a key. Spike leaned forward and let his wrists be unlocked. Angel growled at the red marks the cuffs left behind. The cops all decided to be somewhere else in the station after that.

“Come on,” Angel said, “let’s get you out of here.” He held a hand out to Spike, but Spike just stared at it, so Angel let the hand drop.

“I suppose you’re happy now,” Spike said, making no move to get up.

“No, I’m not,” Angel said. “I don’t like seeing you in pain.”

Spike pointedly looked away, jaw tight.

“You’re free to go, and the police know that. We’ll get you some food and some actual clothes and then just talk, okay?’

Spike leaned back in his chair, regarding Angel soberly. “Is that what you thought would happen? You barge in, sic the law on us, and then expect me to toddle on home with you?”

Angel had sort of assumed something similar, but he shook his head. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Ah,” Spike crossed his arms. “Well done, then.”

“Where are you going to go? Are you seriously going to walk back to that crappy apartment with bare feet?”

Spike sighed, long and loud, and stood. “Fine,” he said, “be useful and give me a ride back to mine.”

It was only because this was Spike, Angel supposed, that he wanted to stake him within seconds of wanting to wrap him in cotton bandages and kiss every little part of him.

Spike followed Angel silently to his car. Angel unlocked the doors and watched Spike get in. “Was it your loving boyfriend who beat your face in?”

Spike brushed the dirt from his bare feet. “Shows he cares.”

Angel bit his lip and just got into the driver’s seat, though for a second he sat, hand poised over the ignition, considering that he had Spike in the car, now, and he could just… just what? Kidnap him? He looked over to see Spike regarding him warily, an expression made more poignant by the one swollen eye.

Angel started the car. He glanced in the rear-view, grateful for once for the absence of reflection. “You told me that David picked you up off the street and nursed you back to health.”

“More than I deserved.”

“So why won’t you let me do the same thing?”

Spike snorted.

“I’m not lying, Spike – I don’t want to take you back there, but I will if it’s really what you want. Or I could take you to my friend Fred’s place. She’s nice, non-threatening, and scary smart. You could take a few days to decide what you want to do. I’ll keep my distance. If that’s what you want.”

Spike was silent, and Angel risked a glance over at him. Spike was staring out the window with a blank expression.

“Or,” Angel said, turning his eyes back to the road, “I could just drag you back to my place by your hair and have my way with you.”

“Flirt.”

Angel was relieved to hear the teasing note in Spike’s voice. “Or we could skip the dragging. Love doesn’t have to hurt, you know.”

There was an uncomfortable silence. When Spike spoke, his voice was raspy. “Yes it does. The more it hurts, the more you’re in love.” Spike sighed. “Don’t think I hurt quite enough with David.”

“You know what, Spike? You’re insightful. You say amazing, true things that cut through to the heart of a matter. But every once in a while, you’re full of shit. This is one of those times.”

“Did I hear a compliment buried in there?”

They’d reached the sorry little building with the nightclub. Police tape crossed the door. Angel pulled up to the curb. “Are you sure you want to spend the night here? Alone?”

Spike sat up, hand on the door handle, but he hadn’t opened the door yet.

“You’ll like Fred,” Angel threw out. “She’s sweet. Like Willow, only even more non-threatening.”

Spike gave him an odd look. “You’ve not seen Willow recently, I take it.”

“No strings attached. Hot shower and company versus whatever you have waiting up there.”

Spike relaxed back into the seat. “All right,” he said.

Angel relaxed a bit, too. He pulled back into traffic before Spike could change his mind.

***

Hot water ran soothingly over his shoulders, and Angel felt the heat starting to permeate not only himself but also the smaller body he held close to him. He kissed the side of Spike’s face and just enjoyed the feel of their bodies nestled together.

Spike let his head rest back on Angel’s shoulder. Angel let his hands lazily rub suds down Spike’s front. He kissed him again. “So what convinced you to come home with me?”

Spike’s chest lifted a little. “It wasn’t that silly lie about putting me up at some bird’s place.”

Angel decided to leave that one alone. “I like this,” he said, and shifted so he could lather up Spike’s left side as much as he had the right.

“It’s because you took me home, to David’s, though you looked like you were swallowing holy water. You respected my sodding wishes. All right?”

He turned in Angel’s arms and their eyes met, serious, silent, but together, in the same place for real. The chasm had been breached. Angel rubbed his cheek against Spike’s, getting as close together as possible. He licked a droplet of water from his ear. “So how did you finish off that popsicle?”

Spike laughed, loud and bright, and Angel finally felt like he’d rescued him.

END


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